Image quality appears very good in sample shots

Image quality appears very good in sample shots

Nokia Oyj.'s ( HEX:NOK1V) upcoming flagship phone will be officially unveiled Thursday. Partner Microsoft Corp. ( MSFT) may have blown the surprise, though, when Windows Phone manager Joe Belfiore posted photos dubbed 'Lumia 1020' to his Flickr account. The photo has since been removed, but the tag is still there lingering around. Okay, so technically the blogosphere already new that Nokia's upcoming PureView camera phone was expected to be dubbed the Lumia 1020. But as The Verge points out, the pictures do offer up some interesting new information. They indicate that the massive sensor will generally shoot in 2947 x 1658 resolution (nearly 5-megapixels) or 2352 x 1568 (3.7-megapixels), rather than the 41 megapixel resolution the original Symbian PureView phone ( the Nokia 808) shot in. Camera buffs will recognize this is a good thing, as pixel size is important to image quality.

_{Joey Belfiore poses for a pic from the Lumia 1020 which he mentions on Flickr (whoops). [Image Source: Joey Belfiore via Flickr via The Verge]} While it's unclear whether the Nokia shooter will include freeze-frame/stop-action rapid shooting like HTC Corp.'s ( TPE:2498) One smartphone, it is expected to blow away both the One and Apple, Inc. ( AAPL) iPhone 5 in image quality. The Lumia 1020 is expected to pack a large bar-style xenon flash, which few smartphones have and have a 1/1.2' second-generation PureView sensor. That sensor is bigger than most point and shoot cameras and several times the size of the sensor found in the iPhone 5 or One. That huge sensor is coupled with Carl Zeiss optics to let in plenty of light. The onboard camera is also expected to have Nokia's floating lens technology, which helps focus and color depth. And reported it will add an adjustable aperture and manual shutter -- firsts for a smartphone. Those improvements could put the super-shooter on level with high-end point and shoot cameras, albeit without the optical zoom. Again the only gripes/unknowns are whether the camera app will be capable of automatic high-dynamic-range (HDR) imaging and whether stop-frame picture selection will be available.

_{The Nokia 'PureView' Lumia 1020 (click to enlarge) [Image Source: EVLeaks]}

For those complaining about battery life on the Lumia, Nokia may have an answer -- it's reportedly prepping a special accessory for Thursday that doubles as an expansion battery, a camera grip, and a bit of protective casing for the device. Sounds pretty clever. Little is known about the hardware spec outside the speculation, although the phone is expected to have an OLED display ( like the Lumia 925). We'll have to wait till Thursday to find out about the rest of the spec.

Sources: Flickr, The Verge